MoBay nets more than US$17 million from cruise shipping
WESTERN BUREAU — The resort town of Montego Bay has earned more than US$17 million from the cruise shipping industry since the start of the year.
According to David Lindo, chairman of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s cruise shipping committee, cruise ship passenger arrivals into the city have surpassed last year’s 190,000-mark and are likely to reach in the region of 300,000 by yearend.
“We have been having a record amount of passenger arrivals in Montego Bay since the start of the year and already we have exceeded (the figures for) 2002,” Lindo told the Observer Thursday.
“We are predicting that for the entire year arrivals will be in the region of about 300,000,” he added.
Lindo said with cruise ship passengers spending an average of US$85 each, Montego Bay has so far surpassed the US$17 million mark in earnings.
According to figures released by the Chamber, just under 204,000 cruise ship passengers had visited the city up to the end of July.
According to the cruise ship official, the upturn in the city’s cruise ship industry can be attributed mainly to a number of initiatives taken by the tourism sector.
“We — the cruise committee, along with the tourist board and the ports authority — formed an alliance and we went after the cruise lines to get them to come to Montego Bay,” Lindo said. “We also improved our product in Montego Bay and there was bit of luck as well.”
He said after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, the cruise ships repositioned themselves by moving their home porting to places accessible by car, rather than by airline; so they went to various ports in the Gulf Coast.
“Once they did that, the natural place for these ships to come was the western Caribbean and Jamaica happens to be well placed in it,” Lindo explained.
Meanwhile, Lindo said a new vessel called the Aida, which can hold up to 1,600 passengers, will be home porting in Montego Bay as of the upcoming winter tourist season.
The Norwegian Dawn, which made a few calls to Montego Bay this year, would also be making many calls to the city during the winter, he said.
